This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Deconstruct what makes top mobile games tick at GDC 2019

Billions of people around the world play mobile games, but it often seems like the mobile charts are dominated by a handful of top earners.

How do those popular games rise to the top, and how can you help your own games do the same? You may well learn the answers at the 2019 Game Developers Conference, which will include a smorgasbord of insightful mobile-focused talks.

For example, in their Business & Marketing track talk on "Deconstructor of Fun: Breaking Down Top Mobile Games" Rovio's Michail Katkoff and Warner Bros. Interactive's Adam Telfer will break down 2 of the top grossing free-to-play mobile games on the market (one 'casual' and one 'mid-core') and offer insight about how the systems work and what ultimately drives their success.

This promises to be a great talk, not least because Telfer and Katkoff together are responsible for the insightful Deconstructor of Fun blog and podcast, which offers deep analyses of mobile game design and monetization strategies.

And as part of the same track of talks SocialPoint's Aviv Stern will be presenting a useful session on "Using Lean Analytics to Make Better Games." Sharing takeaways from his experiences at Plarium and SocialPoint, Stern will demonstrate how they used data to help studios understand their users without breaking their pace, adhering to a 'lean startup' strategy.

You'll specifically learn how they created self-service analytics systems that let game teams track and analyze user behavior autonomously, changed the A/B testing methodologies to be able to quickly run an A/B test in a new game with very few users, And how they created data systems that let games use "plug and play" analytics across studios and geos. Don't miss out!

GDC 2019 will take place March 18th through the 22nd at the (newly renovated!) Moscone Center in San Francisco. Passes went on sale pretty recently, so make sure to check out your GDC 2019 pass options and register early to get the best price!